Fairies of the Shattered Moon

by TheMaster4444

When Team RWBY discover a mysterious book right before the Vytal Festival, they are blasted to a place of magic and wonder. A few days later, they return, having spent six months as Fairy Tail wizards, forging bonds that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. But answers still elude the young huntresses. Who sent the book? And what link does it have with Fairy Tail?

71. Chapter 71

Thank you all, both for your patience and for over 1,000 Favorites to this story.

Now then. Here. We. Go.

Beta-ed by xenosaiyan and MasterPrince713

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Only when she was staring down the four-armed monstrosity bleeding the Winter Maiden's signature did Ruby realize that she'd never actually seen an Eclipse Etherious Form in action before. Her friends had all given her plenty of descriptions, comparisons to Kyouka or Mard Geer, but none of them really did the sight justice. The giant eyes on the massive upper palms, the broken chains listing off the lower wrists, the horrid mass of scars that seemed to cover every inch of the creature's ghastly grey flesh…

But worst of all was the eyes. Great big orbs of pure demonic yellow, no iris or pupil in sight. No humanity in sight.

And yet, Ruby knew it was Summer. This inhuman beast who she'd only just stopped from blasting Weiss to bits was her mother. Her best and only chance to convince Salem to back off from conquering the world was trying to bash in her best friend's skull.

"Ruby," Summer spoke, soft and audibly restrained, but with a tidal wave of fury just waiting to break free. "Get out of the way."

"Get out of the—no!" Ruby shouted. "You two are wasting time fighting while whatever blew up the castle is still—"

"What blew up the castle is right in front of us!" Weiss growled, stomping forward in her towering Ice God Armor Gigas. "She and Salem have planned all of this to take us out in one fell swoop!"

"One fell—what?" Ruby said, cocking an eyebrow at her partner. She did remember that Salem and End had been in the same room with the rest of them, right? There were plenty of easier ways to kill them all if they wanted to. "Weiss, that doesn't make any—"

"I have told you repeatedly that you are mistaken," Summer snarled, her livid wrath booming through the icy cavern. "If you will not believe the truth, you can sleep with Raven until the world is saved. Or die resisting salvation."

"Wait, what?!" Ruby shouted, desperately trying to play catch up with the new information, throwing out a hand towards each of the women to keep them at bay. "Mom, we don't have to fight! If you can help me convince Salem that there's another way, we don't have to conquer the world—"

"Do you have another way?!"

"Well, no, but—"

"Then there is no other way!" Summer roared, all restraint completely gone. "All of your opposition to the truth does not change the fact that it is the truth! I will not run from this fight and let compassion and humanity murder the world!"

Ruby staggered back, her eyes wide with shock and confusion. She'd never seen her mother like this, so thoroughly bereft of patience. What had happened since she left the throne room with Yang? Hell, where was Yang?!

"Enough talk!" Weiss screamed, blowing past her team leader. "Let's end this self-righteous bitch!"

"What!?" Ruby squawked. "Weiss, wait!"

She didn't. Neither of them did. Weiss charged down the corridor as Summer raised her arms, a quartet of knives scattered across the ground rising to Macro's call and flying forward towards the battle.

They were going to kill each other. Her best friend and her mother were going to kill each other, and she couldn't stop them! She didn't even have the slightest hint of control of this situation! How had things spiraled so hopelessly since that Crash Magic blast?!

What was she even supposed to do now? How could she convince Summer to help her bring Salem around if she was so damn furious?! How could she convince Weiss that the Gates wouldn't blow up their own regeneration center to take a shot at Fairy Tail when she was so caught up in seeking justice!? How could she fight either of them when she loved them both?!

Weiss leapt towards Summer, her blade raised in an overhead slash, quite unlike the former heiress's usual nimble fighting style. Perhaps that was why the Gate of the Maiden was easily able to dance away from the strike, her flying knives slipping through her fingers as they flew at the God Slayer. Once the blades made contact with the Eclipse Etherious however, the familiar glow of the elder huntress's semblance shone over their steel.

But when it did its work, the products were no mere blade clones.

Four more Eclipse Etherious versions of Summer bloomed to life, all of them hurdling for Weiss. The ice wizard flicked her sword up into one of the advancing clones, the phantom's shell bursting apart, but one of the others simply swooped in and slugged the God Slayer with her massive fist. Weiss's towering Grimm armor was sent stumbling towards the wall, the trio of blade clones stalking around the staggered and vulnerable warrior.

Ruby gulped, Crescent Rose flashing into her hands as her Reaper's Rose Armor materialized over her body.

She blurred into a flurry of flower petals and appeared atop her partner's giant armored shoulders. Her signature rifle fired off and her scythe swept through the clones' necks in a single streak of steel.

Whether they had the strength of Eclipse Etherious or not, they were still blade clones, and the common weaknesses of every clone semblance whether Summer's, Blake's, or Sun's was that the copies' constitution could be compromised with one strong hit. With Ruby's semblance, armor, and weapon boosting her speed, it was much easier to get in that hit and turn the phantoms back to daggers.

When they dissipated, she got a good long look at her mother's demonically livid face.

Perhaps afterward, if things went well, she could come up with some logical excuse to her long-lost parent about why she'd sided against her. After all, she doubted she could defeat Summer one-on-one if they'd teamed up against Weiss and Ruby needed to stop her from killing the ice wizard afterward, but she was confident that she could keep Weiss from killing Summer if the partners were able to defeat the Gate of the Maiden. It was just logic to try to save the most lives.

But it would be a lie. Logic was the furthest thing from Ruby's mind that moment when she'd made her choice. In that moment, all she'd had was her feeling of powerlessness dangling her over a pit of despair… and the promise she'd made her partner that served as her only lifeline to the cliff.

She'd promised Weiss that if it came down to it, she'd stand by her side. Just as she'd promised Wendy that she'd find a way to let the Strongest Team return to the guildhall. That she'd fix everything.

She had to fix everything.

And so, the Scarlet Reaper and the White Fairy charged the Gate of the Maiden.

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"Why did you do that?" Taiyang demanded, staring incredulously at Carla, Yang and Pyrrha's trail having disappeared up in the tower's halls. "Hell, why would you even lie to her like that in the first place?"

Carla sighed, her own mind hammering with that same accusing query even when she already knew the answer. "Because as long as she was here, she would not allow us to plan anything."

Nora snorted. "Plan? Plan what? What can we do to beat the Gates?"

"In all likelihood? Little," Carla admitted. "But our friends cannot win either. They might kill a Gate, maybe two. But Salem? End? Not here. Not on their turf. We need a way out." She turned to Penny. "There were airships on the landing pad. Can you get one working?"

"I am aware of the mechanics necessary to bypass its key sequence," Penny replied, her mouth still set in a scowl. "But I can't fly it through the perimeter. You saw what the Grimm are like out there, they'd tear us to shreds."

"We have a Light Refraction Wizard," Carla pointed out. "She can cloak us."

"That won't be enough," Nora morosely revealed. "The Grimm don't just hunt by sight, they hunt negativity and that only gets stronger with time. If the ones out there are really as old as everyone says, my magic won't do anything."

"But Ren's semblance can. He'll have to push himself, but he can do it," Carla noted, a bit of hope creeping into her voice. "Where is he? If we can get to him… Nora?"

The white Exceed's voice faded off as tears suddenly broke out from her eyes at the mention of her partner. "Ren… Ren can't help us."

"What do you mean?" Carla asked, her note of hope replaced by a sliver of panic. "Nora, where is he? If he's in trouble we can help him—"

"We can't help him!" Nora roared.

The hammer-wielding huntress staggered forward a few steps before her legs quivered and collapsed out from under her. Penny dashed over to the other orange-haired girl, holding her close as she struggled to halt her weeping.

Carla flinched away, guilt seeping through her. What was she even doing? Ever since she'd seen that vision of Wendy kneeling before, hell, even before then as she'd observed her partner become willing to cross more and more lines the longer they were on Remnant, she'd felt her fear, her feeling of powerlessness, grow further than… further than it had since Edolas.

All these years, and once more she felt as powerless as she'd thought she was when she and Happy had awoken in Extalia, when she'd been told that every action she'd ever taken had not been her own, but an order to destroy her dearest friends. Except now she refused to dance to Summer and Salem's tune and instead she felt like she was flailing helplessly in her own strings. She didn't have the kind of raw strength that Wendy, Erza, Natsu, and the others had. All she had was her future vision and she'd perverted even that by lying to Yang and then using the truth to manipulate her. She'd had good intentions, she'd wanted to keep from fighting her friends no matter what, but was that supposed to absolve her of the harm it caused? And if all she caused was harm with her own actions, if she was so relentlessly powerless… maybe being a puppet to Salem would be better… for her… for the world… for her friends—

"We're not puppets! We're Fairy Tail Wizards!"

Carla let out a slow breath, a slip of steel pushing back against her mounting despair. She didn't know where Happy's loyalties laid in the present, but the memory of his words and his will from back then still rang through her ears. Salem was right about one thing. No Fairy Tail wizard could just stand by and do nothing. It was not in them to be puppets, to stand back and allow something they saw as wrong to go unopposed. They would go forward. Either to salvation or oblivion, but only forward.

And if there was no acceptable path in sight, they would search until they found one.

Carla turned to Taiyang, the blond huntsman awkwardly placing Raven on the ground before him. "Jaune's semblance can supercharge someone else's. Can yours do anything similar? Raven's portals might be our only way out."

"Unfortunately, no. My semblance doesn't do anything like that," Tai answered, mournfully shaking his head at the slumbering Spring Maiden. "From what you've described, even Jaune's would need her to be awake to use it."

"She will be awake," Carla declared, forcing iron into her voice. "Someone has forced Summer to go all out. If it's Ruby or Erza, one way or another she'll wake up."

Either by bringing her to their side… or the thing that caused a conflicted expression to flicker over Taiyang's face. Carla didn't blame him for it. She certainly hadn't been pleased to have been unable to mention Wendy just now, and not because she lacked strength.

"It doesn't matter," Tai eventually mumbled. "Even if she wakes up somehow, she needs an anchor to connect to outside the castle. And since I'm here, there's no one to… unless…"

The blond huntsman's eyes widened, his head whipping up in realization. Carla followed his gaze of hope to the one person in their group who so far hadn't participated in the conversation.

Qrow glanced up at them both. "What?"

"You can be the anchor," Taiyang said. "If you can get as far away as you can, Raven can portal us all out in one fell swoop."

"But then how would he get past the Grimm… oh right," Nora murmured. "Bird."

"Grimm do not target animals unless they are attacked first," Penny remarked. "And given that the average crow can fly up to seventy miles an hour, and you will be reinforced with both aura and magic, you should easily be able to reach the coast—"

"I'm not going to just fly away!" Qrow protested, rounding on them all. "I know I'm not strong. I know my semblance is what it is."

"Qrow," Tai murmured. "That's not what this is about—"

"You're a drunk who can turn into a bird," Carla interjected, everyone in the room staring at her in shock. She ignored them and marched straight up to Qrow, transforming in her faunus form as she glared him down. "I'm a cat that can turn into a little girl and maybe once in a blue moon see something useful about the future. Our parlor tricks aren't going to be any use in a straight fight here. And you know it."

"I won't abandon you all!" Qrow shot back, his body shaking. "If Summer really does have a way to cancel out my semblance, if there's a chance that I can protect Ruby and Yang and actually be a huntsman—"

"You've always been a huntsman!" Tai cut in, drawing his partner's gaze. "Have you not been listening to anything we've said? Hell, even Summer… you don't have anything to prove!"

Qrow's eyes fell in shame. "So I'm just supposed to run? You all have stuck by me no matter what, and the best I can do to repay you is to leave you behind?"

"You're not leaving us behind," Carla insisted. "You know there's more to power than strength. Sometimes, knowing when to listen to your fear, knowing where you are weak, and knowing when to retreat, is all we can do."

"We can't win," Qrow mumbled.

"We win by surviving. By doing what we can," Carla declared. "No matter where we stumble, no matter where we fall, we live. And we can't do that without your help. So please, do what you can."

Qrow gulped, his gaze rising a fraction to meet Carla's defiant yet pleading eyes. She'd seen how much his already fragile emotional state had been battered yet shored up by his encounter with Summer. His team leader had somehow despaired and inspired him at the same time and his mind was still frayed from the experience.

But his friends were still before him. And they needed him. Carla had failed to reward Yang's faith in her, but her and Qrow… it was not a friendship she had expected, but she knew it was one that they both valued.

"Make sure Ruby and Yang are on that ship," Qrow said. Carla nodded, a promise made.

The old huntsman took a deep breath through his nose, his crimson eyes hardening to rubies. He snatched up Harbinger from where it had laid on the ground and mounted the sword on his back, armed and ready once again. His clothes and weapons melted into black feathers and the finest bird in all Remnant soared off down the hall.

Carla turned to the others. "Someone carry Raven. We need to get to the landing pad."

She could only have faith that the others could hold the Gates off long enough for them to get the airship ready and Raven to wake up.

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When Esper had gone to all the trouble of poisoning him before their encounter at Amity Coliseum, Gray couldn't help but wonder if that meant he would have an easy time fighting the Gates. His encounter with Cinder's gang and the popsicle he'd made out of Mercury had only increased that suspicion.

Hazel had since disabused him of that notion.

Swords, arrows, geysers, giant hammers, it didn't matter what Gray made. The bastard just kept coming, unleashing calamity after calamity to remove any obstacle he couldn't just punch straight through. It was like he didn't feel pain, just battering through everything in a relentless, howling charge.

Fortunately, thanks to Natsu, Gray had a wealth of experience dealing with raging powerhouses who were more ingenious than they first appeared. He'd kept throwing enough ice at the Gate of the Bull to make sure his foe couldn't turn and go after Wendy's group. From there, he retreated himself, continuously throwing up thick frozen walls. The Devil Slayer ice resisted the hellish curses fire and lightning but shattered when Hazel launched his fists through them with all his titanic strength.

Still, it kept him from catching up to Gray as he led him around the fields of rubble. The Devil Slayer and the Eclipse Etherious both breathed hard as they squared off at the southern end of the eastern tower. In the distance, End's sapphire flames screeched into the horizon, their azure glow flooding the two combatants in blue light.

"Had enough… big guy?" Gray panted. "Got it all… out of your system?"

"Ne… never," Hazel huffed, his teeth grinding as he unbuckled the pouches on his belt, wind gathering around the brute. "You will not… stop me. I will not let them go unavenged."

"Your family, right? Your sister. Your cousin," Gray said, his lips curling downward. "You cared enough about Gretel to let Rosenflos drag her name through the mud."

"Better than just letting her be another dead huntress who was tricked into dying for nothing," Hazel growled. "Like the rest of Ozpin's pawns."

"Ozpin's done what he's done. That hardly makes you a good guy," Gray dismissed. "If your family really were huntsmen, they'd be horrified by what you've done in their name."

Hazel's bloody knuckles clenched, furious steam surging from his nostrils. "What I've done, is what he lacked the courage to do. To fight for them! For every last soul who's died in his name!"

"And by your hand."

"Do you think I enjoy it!? Are you incapable of understanding that it must be done?!" he roared, his stomp causing a miniature earthquake, the Devil Slayer throwing up a small ice bulwark to protect himself. "Maybe if you had lost everything, had had everyone you love torn away for no reason, maybe then you would know how I feel—"

"I already know how you feel!" Gray shouted, his voice freezing the Eclipse Etherious as assuredly as his ice. The pitch-black marks of his Full Demon Form spasmed across his face as the Devil Slayer ground his teeth against each other to shove down his amplified rage. "I know what it's like to hate. To want revenge. To want someone to blame, something to strive for to make the pain go away!"

He allowed his eyes to drift down, catching his own reflection in his icy bulwark, putrid demonic tattoos and all. "But it doesn't. Life goes on, and pain with it. All you can do is try to bounce back and make sure you don't look in the mirror one day to find that you've let your pain turn into despair and you into a monster. And make sure you've got people who'll hold up that mirror when you can't bring yourself to look."

Gray's frosty glare rose and met his foe's rabid eyes. "Do you have that? Or does Salem tell you that you need to kill just 'one more' person to save the world?"

He could have sworn Hazel's ground his jaw so hard he chipped a tooth, the crack sounding through the ruins.

"Whoosh."

Gray raised his arms, crafting a loaded ice cannon over his shoulder, but no cyclone burst out to attack him. Instead, forceful but controlled wind blew around Hazel in a spiral pushing up his pouches' flaps and lifting their contents, at least a dozen dust crystals of every color and size, into the air.

In one fell swoop, every single jagged prism was thrust into the Eclipse Etherious's body. Nature's wrath flared through Hazel's veins, surging up each of his arms and legs and coalescing in his chest in a maelstrom of lightning and fire.

Gray cocked an eyebrow. "Why the hell did you do that—"

He didn't even get to finish his question before Hazel blitzed right past him, errant lightning sparks and the barest wisps of a tornado the only signs he'd ever been before the Devil Slayer at all. Gray whirled his head to side, a pair of enormous fists already mere inches from his head, thunder cracking from their knuckles.

The Devil Slayer frantically tossed his shoulder cannon into the punches' path, buying himself a crucial half-second to dodge the direct blow. Even still, his ice weapon was shattered by Hazel's attack, lightning and fire lancing out from the Gate's clenched fingers to blast Gray across the room. The Ice Wizard tumbled across the ground, only to find his enemy's newfound speed had allowed him to close the gap almost immediately, a field of boulders shattering near instantaneously as the Eclipse Etherious charged right through them.

Thinking fast, Gray slammed his palms into the ground, a magic circle flaring to life as Hazel's fist fell upon him. "Ice Devil's Zero Impalement Hell!"

A sea of pink ice swept over the obsidian floor, Gray's reflection shining beneath him as giant smooth spikes jutted into the air all around him. Three of the thickest pointed pillars sprouted up between the ice wizard and his adversary, Hazel suddenly pushed back as his elemental fists merely bashed through the impromptu wall instead of the Devil Slayer's skull, pale frost sticking to his skin.

Gray teetered back to regain his breath, tossing out his arm and throwing a wave of unshaped ice at his opponent. Not made into weapons, not made into anything, just the instinctive flash of his element, his tattoo pulsing over the side of his body as he desperately tried to keep his enemy at bay.

He'd been an idiot! Ozpin had warned them that Hazel favored using dust, but Gray had thought he'd use it as some kind of ammunition like everyone else, not jack it straight into his body! Semblance or not, putting that many crystals into him would have killed any regular person, but obviously, an Eclipse Etherious's constitution could handle the strain. Instead of being slowly cooked alive, he got himself strength like a dragon and speed like Laxus.

Gray's Full Demon Form howled in his mind, baying for blood and urging him to give in to his hatred and rage at his powerlessness to charge the Gate head-on, just like he'd done at Neo-Hell's Core. He pushed back and held his emotions in check, both for his personal reasons and important strategic ones. Trying to break down Hazel's famously regenerative aura in a straight-on fight was a recipe for disaster, but the tactics Gray had been employing since the fight began had been doing their work. If he could just get enough of a breather to collect himself and capitalize on the advantage they'd gotten him—

"RAAAGGGHHHHH!"

No calamities this time. Hazel was just pissed beyond even his previous anger, bulldozing a dozen of the ice spikes to come around and flank Gray, a double fist uppercut screaming for his jaw.

Gray's eyes widened. A glancing blow from such a strike sent him hurtling across the room. Tired as he was, a direct hit of that caliber would put him down. If that happened Hazel would go after Wendy and the others! He had to protect his friends! He had to move!

And so he did.

He just wasn't entirely sure how.

One moment his fingers were pushing him off his reflection in the ice with Hazel's fists shrieking towards him, and the next he was suddenly shot thirty feet in the air. He and his foe shared a brief look of utter befuddlement, the brutal combat dropping away for a brief second for the two opponents to bask in their mutual confusion.

Gray was fully aware of what his Ice Magic was capable of. He could pull something like this off with his Ice-Make Geyser or Platform, but he hadn't cast any spell. His origin still had the small amount of ethernano and magic power in it as it had a few moments before. If anything, he had a bit less… aura.

He needed to protect his friends. He needed to move.

An eager smirk broke out over Gray's lips. He'd needed breathing room. He didn't know what his semblance was or how it had bounced him off his ice, but it had certainly risen to his visceral call as Ozpin had said.

Down below, Hazel slapped his hands together, a gargantuan spiky boulder of earth, fire, electricity forming within between his four palms. Gray clapped his fist into his own palm, mist foaming out of his skin as he was able to finally shape a way to fight back.

"Whoosh!"

"Ice Devil's Zeroth Destruction Bow!"

Hazel launched his boulder into the sky, streaking faster than any cannonshot as it was propelled by a spiraling cyclone. It then shattered into a cacophony of explosions and a million pieces as Gray's Ice Devil arrow shot straight through it, crashing down on the Gate's leg like a bolt of divine judgment.

Gray conjured a frozen slide to safely escort him back to the ground, not yet understanding his semblance enough to trust it with the job. Hazel followed his pattern and charged the Devil Slayer as soon as he was in range, but he was noticeable slower now, visible.

"Ice Devil Cleats! Ice Devil's Zeroth Destruction Fist!"

Gauntlets of pink ice, the same ones he'd used to defeat Invel during the Alvarez War, formed over Gray's arms, mirrored on his feet by a pair of spiked shoes that dug down into the icy floor of the Zero Impalement Hell. He raised his arms in front of him, Hazel's fists slamming into the armor.

The crack of frost sounded from the Eclipse Etherious's knuckles as the Gate of the Bull was stopped in his tracks, his elemental follow-up completely blocked by Gray's gauntlets and unable to break his cleats' grip on the ice below.

Shock blossomed across Hazel's face. "How—"

Gray ducked under his frozen arms and socked the Gate across the jaw, sending him tumbling back across the ground.

"The thing about pain," he taunted. "If you don't feel it, it can't warn you!"

Gray was not stronger than Hazel. The Eclipse Etherious had Taurus's raw power combined with his own natural and unnatural strength and that was boosted even further by his infusion of dust. But he'd also been ramming through walls of Devil Slayer Ice since the battle had started, his semblance allowing him to ignore the pain caused by contact with such constructs. However, it hadn't been able to stop that mystical ice from causing the specialized damage it was made to do against one of his kind.

It had taken a bit longer than Gray had hoped for due to the Gate's nature as only half-demon, but slowly but surely all four of his fists had been coated in frost. Frostbite.

His Zeroth Destruction Bow had damaged Hazel's knee enough to slow him down through his aura. But by heedlessly punching through everything else, the hulking man had compromised the muscles in his hands and wrists that let him fully apply the strength of the rest of his body in each blow. His semblance, and his single-minded rage, had crippled him.

Gray hadn't been lying when he said he knew exactly how his opponent felt. From Deliora, to End and Natsu, to Neo-Hell's Core, he knew what it was like to lose yourself to fury seeking justice. And he also knew that no matter how good it felt or how much power it could grant one in the moment, the price would always be more than the justice it granted.

Hazel was a mirror into what he could be on his worst days. Which meant alone, the Gate of the Bull didn't stand a chance fighting him at his best.

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Ruby had long considered her mom the best huntress who'd ever lived. She'd never wanted to test for herself what that meant in a fight.

She soon learned firsthand just how wise a desire that had been.

Combined with the four daggers she'd already used, Summer had produced six more from her pants, spawning half a dozen more blade clones to swarm and overwhelm Weiss. When Ruby shot off to cut them down, her mother had already used Macro and the wind magic of her maiden powers to reclaim the other four blades and spawn a new army, already calling back the dissipated six in order to repeat the process. And when Ruby tried to blitz them, the Gate of Maiden threw a massive boulder at her that she'd ripped up from the hole she'd burned in the Ice God Jotunheim.

Fortunately, Weiss swept forward and cleaved the giant rock in two right before it could smack her partner down. Unfortunately, moving in front to protect Ruby meant that Ruby wasn't in position to protect her when the blade clone quartet rushed in and unleashed a brutal onslaught from every side. Whenever the Ice God Slayer tried to attack one, the others would intervene and halt her assault before beating down on her helmet and its joints, the black ice cracking under the relentless strength.

Ruby tried to shoot to her partner's aid, but Summer was wise to her tactics. The Winter Maiden unleashed a vicious cyclone just as the red hooded huntress fired off Crescent Rose, her flight path completely thrown off in the torrential wind, easy prey for the enormous fireball blasted straight down the tornado's eye.

"Requip!" Ruby called. "Tulip's Aegis!"

Her shield flashed over her arm just in time for the flames to shatter upon her bronze, the Silver-Eyed Warrior huddling behind the bronze. When she lifted her head back up though, she was greeted by a pair of blade clones, their eyes alight as their mouths filled with golden energy.

"Eep!" Ruby squeaked, immediately activating her semblance and just barely dodging the twin Golden Spirit Wails but jetting higher into the air.

Only for her mother to appear right in front of her, two more blade clones dashing behind the huntress and pinning her in place by grabbing both her armor's wings and Crescent Rose.

Summer grabbed Tulip's Aegis with her upper arms, the bronze heating as curse beams started melting it point-blank. Her lower limbs, two daggers in their grip, snaking around the rim of Ruby shield. Golden energy surged from the Gate's eyes into each of her knives, the blades suddenly elongating several feet. Without aura they would have taken off Ruby's arm, and even with it they sliced the leather bracer that bound her shield to her body.

The Gate of the Maiden pinned the discus between her upper hands, the demonic palm eyes flooding the shield with twin bursts of point-blank curse energy as white-hot flames caused the target to glow bright orange.

"No!" Ruby yelled. She tried to lash out with Crescent Rose, to save her captured weapon, but the blade clones used their superior strength to tear the scythe from her arms.

Too late, it was tossed into Summer's grip just as Tulip's Aegis melted to slag.

"Reaper's Rose!" Ruby roared, her voice hoarse and grief-filled. "Petal Dance! Circle Sword!"

Just like the Heaven's Wheel Armor upon which it was based, Ruby's regalia conjured half a dozen blades around its mistress and had them spin. The blade clones pinning the huntress tossed Crescent Rose to her mother, but the Eclipse Etherious backed out of range without trying to save them.

Which made sense the both of them exploded with golden light as soon as Ruby's weapons slashed through them.

"Aaaahhh!" Ruby screamed, her aura straining as she was sent crashing to the ground. Her head struck the ice floor hard, but she knew she had to scramble to her feet before her opponent's trap left her more vulnerable than she already was. She needed to reclaim one of her weapons.

But when she rose, she found none of the swords she'd summoned for her Circle Sword in sight. Just six more blade clones, her mother standing at their head. Summer raised Crescent Rose in her arms, the white glow of her semblance coating the scythe from top to bottom.

A moment later, she had seven blade clones.

Ruby gulped, unable to keep herself from taking a fearful step back. She instinctively tried to dismiss her stolen weapons back to her requip dimension, but nothing happened no matter how she directed her magic. She hesitated summoning any more of her arsenal, unsure if she would just be giving her mother more recruits for her army.

What was happening? Combat was easy for her, one of her favorite parts of being a huntress. Even against opponents who gave her trouble, even when the stakes were high, even against Cinder and Kyouka, she'd always known what to do next, how to at least try to fight back. Why was she hesitating?! Because it was mom? Because she'd been picked apart so easily? That didn't matter! She'd made a promise! She'd made a promise to Weiss to stand with her, to fight! To keep fighting!

But would fighting fix anything? Maybe if they won. The fighting would end when somebody won and if they were going to have any chance at preventing the conquest of Remnant, they had to be that somebody. But the Gate of the Maiden was so strong, how could they win—

"Ice God Bifrost Slash!"

Summer's eyes widened, a gargantuan sword, half black ice and half glowing white Grimm, slashed into her from the opposite side of the hall, the Eclipse Etherious sent flying down the corridor.

"Ruby! Are you okay?!" Weiss called, her ice pulling back from her briefly double-length blade to coat her Umbral Spirit weapon once more. The former heiress's towering armor was cracked and missing several plates, but she was able to stagger to her feet, surrounded by four fallen daggers and several hundred floating rose petals.

Right… right, Ruby had forgotten about her Petal Dance. When she'd realized that Summer was focused on her, she'd started subtly directing the petals from her semblance over to her pummeled partner. At the same time her Circle Sword was backfiring on her, the razor-sharp flower petals were slicing the blade clone quartet apart from behind. It was only fortunate that those surrounding Weiss hadn't been charged with Golden Spirit energy. With her armor so badly damaged, it was doubtful the cracked and shattered plate would provide the necessary protection.

Ruby's silver eyes darted from her partner to the copies of mother, expecting the clones to charge. But instead, the seven soldiers retreated back to their mistress's side, clearing the way for a clear view of Summer rising back to her feet, flicking away flecks of dark frost from her scarred flesh.

"Stay down," Ruby pleaded, demanded, to her mother. "Just stay down!"

"Ice God Gungnir Phalanx!" Weiss shouted, a black time dilation glyph lighting in front of her sword tip. She thrust forward into the spinning ring, ten magic circles instantly appearing along the length of her titanic blade.

A veritable swarm of dark ice lances exploded out from the massive greatsword, enough to fill the entire corridor as they barreled through Earth Magic boulders and a maiden magic firestorm, stampeding without pause towards Summer and her seven clones.

It wasn't going to work though. Ruby knew it wasn't. Weiss's earlier sword strike had sent the Eclipse Etherious flying back past the section of the hall covered by Ice God Jotunheim. Summer was standing on obsidian, on stone. What one couldn't absorb, they deflected or dodged. That was one of the few huntress lessons her mother had imparted to the young girl before she'd left on her fateful mission all those years ago.

Which made it all the more surprising when The Gate of the Maiden didn't budge an inch. Instead, she and all her seven clones' eyes shone blazing gold, their open maws quickly taking on the same threatening hue.

Ruby didn't think things was going to work out any better than if she'd dodged.

"Golden Spirit Wail!"

The brilliant light began as pinpricks between the gaps of the ice lances, only to quickly grow into a blinding wall of death brighter than the sun, tearing through the vineyard of frozen spears like a great purging fire. Maybe Weiss's armor could block it if it were whole, but crippled as it was there was a good chance the blast would kill her, and Ruby wasn't certain her own fresher aura would do any better.

This wasn't strategy. It wasn't tactics. It was anger, raw, furious, and even more blinding than the oncoming wail. It had taken Weiss and now it had taken Summer. Leaving Ruby to try to navigate in a pitch-black world while making sure the blind didn't slaughter each other.

The red hooded huntress gathered each and every one of her hardened petals, unleashing her semblance as much as she had time for to increase her numbers. She commanded the thousands of flowery leaves to form up in front of her and Weiss, a spinning rose circle over an inch thick.

She had no idea if this would work. She'd designed this feature of Reaper's Rose Armor to extend her range and help pull off trick shots. She hadn't even known other Spirit Slayers existed when Wendy had finally helped her put it together. But if she didn't, then Weiss would die for sure. Protecting her friends, keeping her promise, that was the right thing to do, right? And since she still didn't have Fairy Glitter down, this was her only shot.

Reaching out through her armor, she turned the petals' mirror magic up to maximum and activated their color change magic. The makeshift shield shifted from scarlet to gold as the wall of blaring light smashed into it. Ruby's body spasmed under the sudden colossal weight forced upon her magic, but she pushed through. With grit, will, and sheer refusal to go down, she buckled the blast to a standstill.

"Aurum Mirror Reflector!"

With one final push, the great beam of golden light was turned back whence it came.

---

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Cinder had only just arrived at the western tower when the Golden Spirit Wail burst out the side of the spire, the Gate of the Archer forced to dodge the raining obsidian rubble. The giant stream of light roared into the sky, a far-off flying figure (Belladonna?) taking evasive maneuvers to avoid being blown out of the air.

The Gate of the Archer paid little heed to the flailing cat faunus, her eyes only on the new gaping hole above. Teacher wasn't normally so explosive with her abilities, she had often scolded Cinder for her overexuberance and advised her towards subtler strategies, so if she was fighting with such bombast…

No… no… The Ophiuchus was handling Erza Scarlet. Who else could possibly push Teacher so far? And if she had been pushed so far, then she couldn't protect Cinder.

No… now Teacher needed help. And it was Cinder's turn to protect her.

"Eclipse Etherious Form," the former Fall Maiden declared, voice steady and determined. Magic and curse energy surged out of her, and she blossomed into her true form, bone armor and cloven hooves already covered in the emerald sparks of enhancement.

Deciding the stairs would take too long, Cinder bounded into the air and rammed her arm into the side of the citadel, her armored limb easily smashing through the obsidian to create an impromptu handhold. Once she had a stable grip, she whipped herself upward with her tremendous strength and repeated the process with the other arm, climbing the tower bit by bit.

"I'm coming, Teacher," she whispered. "Just hold out a little longer."

---

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Erza wasn't sure how much longer she could hold out.

The Queen of the Fairies panted as she held Benizakura out before her in a combat stance, freezing mist crumbling from the demon blade as the sapphire light of the enemy's fire fell upon the valiant redhead. Her Armadura Fairy Armor was missing multiple sections, its protection compromised by its repeated clashes with curse flames. Its air conditioning charms had also been incinerated, which might have seemed a far more minor detail given the circumstances but fighting in head-to-toe armor didn't provide much ventilation even when one wasn't facing an enemy who raised the temperature by his mere presence. Erza's aura had to work overtime to keep her from suffering heatstroke and even then, she sweated like a madwoman in End's scorching presence.

The Ophiuchus had eschewed the careful ranged tactics he'd employed at Haven, spawning a trio of Purgatory Hounds and leading them into battle as their alpha. Erza had been forced to dance and dangle back in order to keep from being surrounded and subdued by multiple foes, foes that could be respawned as long as End himself survived. She must have taken down a dozen of those giant fire dogs, desperately dodging or tanking their master's blazing counterattacks. She was getting tired, worn down by the seemingly never-ending wall of strength in front of her. For a moment, she actually considered if surrender might be the only practical option before her.

Then the massive Golden Spirit Roar had erupted out the western tower and seared its way into the night sky, reminding Erza of exactly who was threatening her friends. Her eyes narrowed and her resolve hardened once more, fearlessly staring down her fiery foes.

"High Enchant: Ice Devil's Cold Air!"

Gray's power once more flashed over Benizakura, equipping the sword to do as much damage as it could to the enemies before it. One would think Erza would have already cast that enchantment over her weapon, and she had. Many times. Unfortunately, while the Devil Slayer aspect did make the blade more dangerous to End and his pets, it was still an enchantment rather than an inherent attribute. Which meant that every time it touched the Ophiuchus's curse flames, even when it was carving his Purgatory Hounds apart, the enchantment was damaged and worn down, all too soon needing to be recast.

But still lethal while it lasted. Erza had more than once caught sight of flakes of pink frost forming over End's scales over the areas where she struck him. They were thin as could be and evaporated mere moments from the ambient heat, but they had taken root through her enemy's aura. And given the Ophiuchus was a pure Etherious instead of a half-breed like his fellows, that meant that the Devil Slayer Ice's ability to get to him was a vulnerability she could exploit if she could get enough power behind it.

And if she could survive long enough to get to him.

Her blade ready for battle, Erza whipped around and met her foes with a countercharge, the fiery hounds thrown off by her sudden reversal. She leapt into the air and sliced up through the first Purgatory Hound's neck, her sword's icy mist severing the flaming tendrils combining its head to its body. The blaze collapsed to the ground with a mournful howl before dissipating into hissing sparks.

The other two Purgatory Hounds roared, stampeding after the redhead to avenge their comrade. Unfortunately for them, their master had already taken action to do so, jumping in with a brutal flaming fist. Erza hopped back into the air, End's punch smashing into the ground and exploding with power. The Scarlet Knight buckled against the rushing heat, her aura and armor doing a well enough job of buffeting the blast. Especially in comparison to the two Purgatory Hounds, whose forms flickered as they were cut to pieces by the Etherious's blaze.

The beasts began to reform, but Erza wasn't about to let their paralysis go to waste.

"Requip! Black Wing Armor!"

Her armor flashed upon her, her wings spread, and, in an instant, her frozen sword had cleaved both the hounds' heads in two. The beasts of fire sputtered and wailed as they faded to nothing.

Revealing End looking up with a toothy smile, marble of white-hot fire spinning on his fingertip.

"See, that is exactly why I prefer my allies aren't within my blast radius," he joked, flicking the marble to the ground. "Fire Devil Emperor – Dante's Tower."

"Adamantine Armor!" Erza yelled, smashing the twin tower shields together as blinding fire filled the sky.

The Titania was smacked down into the dirt, black soot splashing over her face. Her defensive armor's spell had barely kept her from being incinerated in the firestorm at the cost of itself, its shields reduced to misshapen slag and its pauldrons and gauntlets melted into patchwork. Erza ground her teeth and lurched to her feet, flashing her scraped armor away and replacing it with her Clear Heart Clothing.

End swaggered up to the peak of the small hill before her, an exuberant grin on his face. "Impressive, Erza. Most impressive! I haven't had this much fun in a long time! It's so nice to be able to try."

"Glad to be entertaining," Erza growled.

"More than entertaining, Titania! I've been waiting decades for this fight!" End cheered. "I was almost afraid you wouldn't be able to live up to my imagination. But I should have known better. All those beatdowns you gave Salamander are some of my fondest memories after all."

"Really?" Erza rolled her eyes, sucking in as many hot breaths as she could in this brief reprieve. "Would have thought that would earn a bit more favor."

"Oh, I assure you, you have my highest respect. The only warrior that put that imbecile in his place without fail. His luck and recklessness took down Wizard Saints, demons, and even the odd dragon or two. But never you," End praised. He raised his claw, a softball-sized fireball blooming in his palm. "But I am not him. And overcoming the queen he never could, will prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt."

"Never… could?" Erza whispered. "Ha… ha… hahaha… hahahahahaha!"

She couldn't help it! She was battered and down to her last scraps of aura next to a bubbling pool of Grimm mud, the most powerful foe she'd faced since the God Dragons bearing down on her, and she was laughing out loud. Her! Laughing!

End cocked an eyebrow. "What's so funny?"

"You think he couldn't beat me! Hahaha!" Erza cackled. "Of course he could have beaten me! He strived to reach my level, the level of Master and Laxus and Gildarts, for years! He never stopped training, never stopped moving forward, and he rose to his goal."

The Ophiuchus's smile dimmed, confusion trickling into his fangs. "He always cowered before you, even after he supposedly reached that strength."

"Because I'm his big sister! Any smart little brother knows better than to make their big sis upset," Erza declared, a wistful, nostalgic smile peaking up her lips. "I always knew he would surpass me in strength. But bonds are a power all their own."

"I've borne witness to the power of friendship before," End replied. "I am well aware of its intricacies."

Erza smirked. "Perhaps you are aware. But you don't understand. Maybe it's your trauma, maybe it's just you, but you would be so desperately trying to deny your similarities to Natsu when you're both so clearly alike."

End's smile disappeared, raw fury erupting over his face as bright azure flames burst from beneath his scales. "What?"

That was it. Unbalance him. Make him sloppy. End was a towering wall of raw strength, but strength was not necessarily power. It didn't decide a fight on its own. If she could keep thinking, exploit every advantage she could, she could still find a way to win this and get to the others before Summer killed them.

And perhaps Erza could get him to slip some other crucial information in the process.

"You certainly have your issues with Lucy, but other than her, you're oddly drawn to what Natsu loved for someone so set on differentiating himself from him," the Queen of the Fairies pointed out. "You've been Happy's partner for decades. You went out of your way to try to help Yang finally confront Raven. And need I mention your love of a good scrap—"

"No! NO! nO! No! NOOOO!" End screamed, the ground beneath his feet melting to magma. "I am not him! I am nothing like him! He was a buffoon and a blithering idiot! You say he trained, he didn't train! He just threw himself at a brick wall a million times over and counted on his luck to get him out of anything more complex! And I had to save him every single time until his bitch— I am not less than him! I am not something to be discarded like meat that's been stripped to the bone! I am alive!"

Erza flinched, fear surging through at the sight of the Ophiuchus's raw rage and the thin bolt of malice threaded beneath his word. Part of her considered backing off from the wall, attempting a retreat closer to the perimeter of ancient Grimm around the edge of the courtyard. Maybe she could find some way to force End onto their side of the border, use them as a distraction while she escaped.

But she knew even if that worked, it would take too long. If she took the time to try that move, she'd be sacrificing Summer's opponents, her friends, to the Gate of the Maiden's relentless determination. She pushed through her fear, refusing to allow it to chain her and made her choice.

If she met a wall, she just had to push through.

"If you're so eager to separate from him, why not let him have a body of his own, let the contrast speak for himself?"

End's tantrum ceased, his fury compressing down into a boiling, venomous glare. "What?"

"Shall I be more transparent?" Erza spat. "Where. Is. Natsu?!"

For a few long seconds, the Ophiuchus allowed her question to wash over him, his face stony yet shaking with livid wrath.

And then, frighteningly enough, his lips blossomed into the coldest smile Erza had ever seen.

---

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"Here he is!" Happy proudly declared, only to sheepishly rub his head a moment later. "Or, at least, his new body is here."

Wendy's smile didn't much care for his hesitance. She and Oscar squeezed their way through the tight shaft into the rough, hollowed-out obsidian cavern. She knew Lucy and Loke would have had trouble fitting through the piping and had to make sure Jaune was safe from Salem, but she really wished they could have seen the ramshackle regeneration tube and the scantily clothed Etherious body within. The hope within.

Oscar extended the Long Memory and limped up to the glass, cocking an eyebrow at the body floating inside. "That's Natsu? He's… shorter than I thought he'd be."

Wendy's eyes narrowed. He wasn't wrong. The Etherious body was closer to her height than her Fire Dragon Slayer brother. Also… "Is his hair… white?"

"Alright, so I couldn't get all the details right. Give me a break. I could only work on this thing when I could sneak off, which wasn't often. It was hard enough to make sure the internal organs were in the right spots," Happy pouted. "Besides, blank bodies like this shift to match the soul that's put in them."

The Exceed paled and turned to Oscar. "Right?"

"Why are you… asking me?" the farmboy said quietly, drawing in great deep breaths, almost gasping.

"Ozma's reincarnated a ton, right? Do the new bodies change to match his old self in any way?"

Oscar frowned, a hand flying up to his bloodied lips. "I'm pretty sure the soul already… in the body… would have something to say about th—aaah!"

"Oscar!" Wendy shouted.

The young time wizard toppled to the ground, blood spewing from his lips more as the Long Memory clattered beside him. Wendy knelt down beside him, her hands flying to his gasping spasming chest.

"What's happening?" Happy asked, leaning over the pair with concern. "Is this that the Accel spell Loke was talking about?"

It was. Despite Wendy's best efforts to halt the degeneration of her friends' injuries during their retreat, the time magic in the Accel spell had run rampant inside his body. The Sky Dragon Slayer's palms blazed with her healing magic's glow, but it was simply too little too late. Oscar's heart was tearing itself apart faster than she could fix them.

"No, no, no!" Wendy ranted, redoubling her efforts to repair the failing organs. "Oscar! Oscar, just hold on! Okay! You're going to be alright!"

She hoped that her words were reassuring, but Oscar's flailing gurgles and Happy's unconvinced grimace left her without confidence in that hope. Especially as she could feel Irene's pitying glare on her back.

"I did warn you, shrimp," she reminded the young Maiden of the Sky.

"Shut up!" Wendy roared.

Happy peeled back, confused. "I wasn't talking?"

"You can't heal him. The damage is too extensive, the degeneration is too fast," Irene continued. "His body is going to give out. He will die and just have been another of Ozma's lives."

"No!" Wendy wailed. "He is my friend! I'll find a way!"

"There is no way, not without sacrifice, not without crossing a line!" Irene yelled. "You're going to betray someone before this is over, give up some friendship!"

"Stop gloating and tell me how to save him!"

"Wendy, who are you talking to?!" Happy pleaded.

Irene paid no heed to the Exceed's confusion or her apprentice's frantic terror. She simply leaned down next to Wendy's ear and whispered.

"Look up."

Wendy did just that, looking up from her dying friend, hoping for a miraculous answer to appear before her eyes. But all she found was what she'd seen before, the regeneration tube and the empty etherious body with… within.

Oh… oh, that could work… but with Happy… it could also go very badly.

"Happy," Wendy whispered. "Get the body ready for transfer."

"What?!" the demonic Exceed exclaimed. "Wendy, we can't do that! If we take it out before we're ready to put Natsu in—"

"We're not putting Natsu in," Wendy revealed.

Happy blinked, befuddlement dominating his face, his eyes flicking back and forth between his guildmate and the regeneration tube trying to figure out what was going on.

Then, his gaze found Oscar. And his lips twisted into a dark scowl.

Wendy gulped, fully aware that her next words would determine just how deep her betrayal would cut.

---

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"He's dead."

Erza's heart froze in her chest, its final booming beat thundering through her eardrums. "… what?"

End's frigid smile cut through her soul like a knife to the chest. "Natsu Dragneel is dead."

Once more, the Etherious's words washed over the Fairy Queen, a wave of freezing water that singed all the more amidst the demon's scorching heat. All of the agony she'd gone through regaining her memories, that Cinder had unleashed on her in the Vault of the Spring Maiden, none pierced her like those four simple words.

"You're… you're lying!" Erza accused, thrusting her sword towards the fire demon.

"Salem wanted to bring as many Fairy Tail members as she could, as quickly as she could!" End taunted, dancing back and forcing her to duck to the side with a line of azure fire. "But she had not mastered the enchantment, and when she attempted to transfer consciousness into a new etherious body, she instead lost him to the void."

"No! Happy… Happy would have told us!"

"He doesn't know! The Queen was ashamed, horrified by her failure!" End laughed, raising his arm above his head and summoning an enormous orb of blue flames in his palm. "He doesn't have anything to be disappointed about though! I'd say I'm a far superior partner than that oaf!"

"You…" Erza snarled, her teeth grinding against each other as the crunch resonated through her head. "You…"

"The Salamander is dead!" End cackled, the star in his hand collapsing into a spinning white orb about the size of a softball, before expanding back to utterly gargantuan size. "Long live me!"

"BASTARD!" Erza roared. "Requip! Nakagami Armor! High Enchant: Ice Devil's Frozen Hell!"

Her most powerful armor flashed over her body as volcanic rage erupted from her soul. Nakagmai's flowing blue and gold robes billowed in the wind as she brandished her resplendent halberd. As soon as it appeared, both weapon and armor were covered in a thick frost of pink ice from head to toe. Expanding the Ice Devil Slayer influence over her entire body was not something she could maintain for long, her body was not inoculated to the extreme cold like Gray or Weiss, but it would be well worth it.

Natsu. Her brother. Her baby brother that she'd taught to read. The boy she'd watched grow up with exasperation and so much pride, who'd found his father and fought for his family and friends against all odds… he did not deserve to die in a whimper, a crinkle in some witch's foolhardy schemes.

And this bastard wearing his face certainly didn't get to gloat about it! No matter his power, no matter if he was the ultimate demon or not, she would not let him stand! She would bring his wall of strength crumbling down!

Gathering at her magic and the last chunk of her aura, Erza exploded forward, her halberd pulled back to strike. "Nakagami Frozen Starlight!"

End thrust down his hand, his titanic white-hot fireball charging down. "Fire Devil Emperor – Cruel Sun MAX!"

The Titania charged, the blinding star coming down so quickly she couldn't hope to dodge. So she didn't, crashing straight on with the blazing fire, her halberd slicing a path straight through. Yet, as soon as it passed, the flames flooded back in, slamming into Erza from every side and angle.

The heat was unbearable, like walking across the surface of the sun. The inferno's curse crashed and crested all across her body, ravaging her flesh as it sank into her skin and armor without a shred of restraint. Her Nakagami Armor and its Devil Slayer Enchantment fought off the scalding blaze as best it could, but even their power could hold out so long against fire made to burn away the gods themselves.

The pain… she didn't think anything could ever compare to the return of her memories, but End was certainly trying to come close. Her armor melted away and her robes burned to ash, her demonic ice stripped away as the last gasps of her aura struggled to fight off the searing agony, shattering just as she reached the edge of the blaze.

Eventually, however, the pain in her arms and legs just… stopped. A sense of… absence swept over her from her fingers to her elbows and her toes to her knees, throbbing agony bordering the missing feeling.

In reality, it must have only been a second, her wrathful charge through the Cruel Sun. But she did get through to the other side, bursting from the flames a phoenix set on vengeance against its killer. She appeared right before End, the demon's eyes widening in shock and fear for the first time the Titania had seen.

Wreathed in the gleaming white trails of her enemy's flames, she brought down her halberd, all the magic in its icy edge set to opening the Ophiuchus from brains to balls. She would break through the wall with one mighty strike and both of them knew it. End made to dodge, jerking to the side with all the speed he could muster in those fleeting instants, but they both knew he would not escape. Erza was a warrior without peer, easily capable of adjusting mid-strike to land a death blow on her foe.

Except… she couldn't. She tried, but she couldn't. When she tried to command her forearms and her hands to make the minute adjustments needed to alter her aim, they didn't respond. Her halberd fell and struck flesh, but not where it needed to.

Thus, even as she heard End's roar of agony, Erza felt despair creep into her soul. She'd hit the wall at her best, with all her strength, all her power, and her love for family.

And she had shattered against it.

---

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Ruby panted as the blinding glare of the Golden Spirit Wail finally faded, revealing a giant hole left in the side of the tower. The huntress collapsed to her knees, her silver eyes tiredly examining the ruins of her final gambit.

Her weapons. Waxing Petal, Waning Thorn, Crescent Rose, all seven of her precious blades were left smoldering wrecks of warped metal and broken gears. Collateral damage to her desperate counter.

In the center of the ruin however, was her target, keeled over the floor and half-submerged in obsidian, as if she realized she needed to dodge too late. The Winter Maiden's energy still poured out of her, so she was alive, but she laid unmoving, her white cloak covering her splayed body. Her aura crackled, either broken or pretty darn close.

"Stay down. Stay down," Ruby whispered, almost praying. "Please, just stay down."

"I'll make sure she stays down!"

Ruby's eyes widened, her head whipping to the side too take as Weiss blurred past her on a line of speed glyphs.

The red hooded huntress rocketed forward with her semblance, reaching out a hand for her partner, but Weiss's glyphs were one of the few things that could compare to her speed even with Reaper's Rose Armor, and she had a head start. The Ice God Slayer in her crumbling armor reached Summer first, her greatsword raised and ready to deliver the finishing blow.

Only for the smoking Gate of the Maiden to suddenly whip upward, her giant hand and its glowing demonic eye shoved right in the former heiress's exposed chest. A huge blue beam of curse energy erupted from the palm and blasted Weiss point-blank, sending her flying. At the same time, golden spirit energy poured from her head and zipped past her foes to a quartet of knives flying in from her curse's command.

"Macro!" Summer screamed. "Golden Spirit Cutter!"

The daggers, their blades heightened and expanded by the shining spirit energy, began to spin at an incredible rate, becoming blurring saws of death and light. They laid into the cracks in Weiss's already crumbling armor, finally striking the Grimm within and annihilating the towering suit. Weiss howled as she was blown away down the hall, skipping across obsidian and her own ice until she slid into a collapsed heap on the floor.

Ruby whipped away from her beaten partner to her returned problem, Summer panting as she slowly rose from her half-submerged state. The Gate of the Maiden turned her attention from Weiss to her newly closing daughter, her blank golden eyes wide, livid, and exhausted.

"Stay down! Stay down! Stay down! STAY DOWN!" Ruby shrieked, tears flooding down her cheeks. "Why won't you stay down!?"

Summer answered with a guttural growl, her glowing knives tearing through the air. They clipped at Ruby, even slashing into her crimson cloak, but she was able to bring her petals up in time to act as a cover, the razor-sharp leaves orbiting their mistress like a thousand angry piranhas, ready to rip apart anything that dared stray into her domain.

Unfortunately, that didn't amount to much when a maiden's typhoon, crackling with lightning, tore them away like a cobweb, its caster rushing in like a woman possessed. Ruby redirected her petals that had blasted away to swing around and go on the offensive, cutting into her mother from every side. But Summer kept going, charging through what must have been agony to reach her opponent.

Ruby tried to flee with her semblance, but the Eclipse Etherious reached her first, snatching her fray cloak and slamming the young Spirit Slayer into the ground. Spittle sprayed from Ruby's lips before she was whipped back into the air and chucked into the wall, her signature red hood ripping off into her mother's fist as the stone cracked from her impact.

She tried to formulate a plan, a way to fight, but Summer was on her in an instant. All four of her fists, both large and small, rained down an endless torrent of blows onto the young girl. Ruby gasped with pain as she was hammered into the black rock, her armor's wings crushed and broken.

At some point, her aura shattered. She didn't think her mother noticed, lost in a flood of exhausted fury. Ruby didn't have room to scream in pain as another punch splayed her blood over the obsidian.

She… she lost. Heck, she didn't even make it to the starting line. She'd needed to convince mom to help her, to convince Salem that they didn't need to conquer the world to save it, that people could make the right choice if given the chance. That they could unite to face a greater evil.

'The real world doesn't care about spirit!'

What a load of malarkey. She couldn't even convince her best friend or her own mother. What chance did she have to convince the world?

'You wanna be a hero?!'

She needed to fix things. She'd promised to fix things. But if she couldn't… what was the point of her? What was the point of a huntress?

'Then play the part and die like every other huntsman in history!'

…

…

…

Was that what it took?

---

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Keep fighting!

Keep fighting!

Push through the wall and win!

The fighting will end when somebody wins!

If Summer could be said to be thinking at all during her final assault, those would be the words dominating her mind.

A Spirit Slayer did not share the immunity to their own attacks that other slayer-types did, another consequence of their power being secluded in their eyes, so she'd felt the full brunt of her power when Ruby had turned her wail back on her. Her body felt like it'd had all of Atlas dropped on top of it and aura was down to its barest hints, enough for maybe one more blade clone, if that. But she pushed through like she always did, just like when she tunneled back to Patch after she'd first ascended.

She had a job to do. Be the monster! Don't let meaningless sentimentality get in the way, don't let compassion kill the world! Do what needed to be done so that there was a world left for people to live in! A world for her… for her…

… daughters…

Summer's hands slowed, her onslaught frozen as she caught sight of the torn red hood wrapped within her fist. Her eyes widened, finally looking through her rage and seeing what she was doing, who she kept hitting.

She saw Ruby, her beautiful baby girl, beaten bloody into the wall. Her silver eyes, which should have been so bright and full of life, peered up without will or hope.

"To fix things… mom?" Ruby gurgled, not seeming to actually look at her assailant. "Do I need… to die… to fix things?"

Those words. Those eight simple words. As soon as they touched her ears, Summer's soul collapsed, all her resolve, and anger, and will crumbling to dust and ash as her daughter asked if she was going to kill her.

And as her gaze flickered over each of her four bloody knuckles, she realized that… if she hadn't seen Ruby's cloak, if she hadn't stopped her assault… she didn't know if she would have or not.

"I'm killing her… I'm killing my girl…" she whimpered, looking on her hands in horror, as tears flooded from her demonic eyes. "My baby girl… I haven't held her in years… and I'm killing her…"

Ruby… Ruby had always wanted to be a huntress, begged for a cloak to match her mother's. She'd been so happy when Tai had gotten one for her birthday, she'd tried to beg another for Yang to wear as well, but the little firecracker refused to put on something that would cover up her gorgeous hair. Qrow had such a joyful smile when the sisters had squabbled.

Qrow… who had asked her to kill him. Just like Ruby had. Her baby girl… had asked her to kill her.

Her daughter was a huntress. She would never stop trying to slay the monster. And if the monster still wanted to accomplish their goal, they would have to kill her first.

And Summer… could not do that. Everything she had ever done, as a huntress, as a spy, as a monster, she had done to create a world where her daughters would not have to be strong.

Her extra arms plunged back into her chest, Ruby's cloak falling to the ground as she exited her Eclipse Etherious Form. Her scar-covered skin turned from gray to pale peach, her golden eyes regaining their irises and pupils. She gently approached her daughter, unarmed and unthreatening, her arms raised in surrender.

"I won't hurt you, Ruby," she whispered, sniffling weakly to keep from breaking down into sobs. "Whatever you need, whatever you think is right, I'll help you. Whatever it takes—"

Her words froze on her lips as a sense of terror and darkness flooded over her back.

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Nothing changed. All those months and nothing changed.

Her Arma Gigas was gone, its armor reduced to shattered black flecks across the dark hall. Weiss herself found her muscles pushed past all her limits, her legs refusing to push her up to a standing position as her head just barely rose to let her see what was occurring down the hall.

And what was occurring froze her soul. Esper, returned to her base form so she could reascend to her Eclipse Etherious Form and heal her injuries, bearing down on a bloody and battered Ruby, her Reaper's Rose Armor crumpled and broken.

She was going to kill her best friend. Her team leader and partner, who had kept her promise and stood by her through everything. But Weiss had failed her, had failed Klein, her mother, and Winter. She had failed to keep her promise and Ruby was going to pay the price.

"No…" Weiss groaned, desperately reaching out her arm, as if her effort would allow her to reach down the long corridor. "I'll kill… you…"

She scraped together what little aura she had left, spawning a white summoning glyph in the air before her palm. She didn't think she could call her entire Arma Gigas, but maybe its sword? Maybe she could shoot its sword and… and…

And it wouldn't be enough. She knew it wouldn't be enough to slay the monster before her. She'd given it her best shot, thrown everything in her arsenal at Rosenflos to no effect. Everything except… except…

"Open the Gate."

"Please take care of her."

"Open the Gate."

"I love you, little sister."

"OPEN THE GATE!"

Esper approached Ruby, stalking towards her bloodied best friend. Weiss's fury, already at a blazing peak, erupted outright, stoked by her protective love for her partner.

And that fury, brought power.

The gate did not open, she did not have the strength for that. But it did fudge, just a fraction of a fraction, the summoning glyph darkening pitch-black.

And the weapon that came out was no Arma Gigas sword.

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Ruby heard what her mom was saying, but the ringing in her ears made it difficult to process. And it was soon overpowered by the cold wave of absolute hell washing over the Silver Spirit Slayer, darker than the Grimmlands themselves.

Her gaze listed to the side, catching sight of Weiss's summoning glyph over Summer's shoulder. The dark sigil grew to three times its size, spinning rapidly until a blur of white and blue shot out like a cannonshot.

It was a spear, larger than any summon Ruby had ever seen her partner manifest, the size of one of the spires back at Haven and with a wicked sharp edge at its point. The tip was so wide that the corridor couldn't contain it, bashing through the opposite wall from the Silver-Eyed Warrior as it thrust down the hall fast as lightning, flashes of gold and red hair ducking out of the rubble's path.

'Yang? Pyrrha?' Ruby instinctively thought, only to be yanked out of the spear's path by her mother.

Summer's eyes lit with the maiden's fire and she leapt away with Ruby, a cyclone under her feet as she just barely got them both out of the way. The spear crashed through the wall where the Spirit Slayers had just stood, the obsidian and ice shattering like pottery clay, but out of harm's way.

Only for the spear to glow with a light more brilliant and blinding than the sun itself, its form morphing, its blade curling inward into a form that Ruby knew all too well.

The new gigantic scythe shrieked towards the Spirit Slayers, slicing through the rest of the wall as swiftly as if it was cutting down an entire field of grain. Ruby was out of aura. She couldn't use her semblance, and even if she could that thing was coming so fast, she wasn't even sure it could have dodged the—

"Macro!"

Ruby didn't realize what had happened until it was already done. But with her aura broken, the Macro Curse was able to affect her body and clothing, her own blouse wrenching the young huntress to the ground, her limbs unnaturally flattened against the floor. The scythe passed just over her head a moment after she was pinned.

And in that moment, she watched as the gigantic scythe cleaved her mother in half.

A moment later, she heard Yang and Cinder wail.

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"Fuuuuuucccccckkkkk!"

End had taken beatings before, Salem had defeated him during their first meeting, but he couldn't remember the last time someone had cut off one of his limbs, let alone through his aura. Yet, his right arm had fallen to the ground, its scales clattering against the gravel. A sheet of misting pink ice had spread across his stump from Erza's strike, a remnant he soon melted away before casting a Purple Flare bandage over the bleeding wound, his aura and natural healing clotting his blood.

As the biting pain lessened in his nerves, shame flooded through the Ophiuchus. He had failed again, let his opponent's words get to him and allowed himself to be enslaved by his fury. He had deceived Erza for the sake of petty spite and disrespected her by fighting sloppy. If he hadn't moved at the last second or if she'd been able to alter the course of her attack, the slash that took his arm would have sliced him in two. Not only would that have spelled doom for Salem's plan against the Umbral Spirit King, but it would have broken the Titania's heart when she discovered what she'd really done.

Of course, she was hardly in much better shape at current. After all, while he had fallen for her goading, she had also fallen for his. A match of pure power was not without consequence for either of them, but it could not deny that he'd won.

The mighty Queen of the Fairies laid face down in the dirt behind him, digging her chin into the ground to try to drag herself to her charred halberd, the only surviving piece of the legendary Nakagami Armor. Most of her skin was covered in soot and welting red burns, either second or third degree. But from her fingertips through her elbows and her knees down to her toes… her skin was black like burnt charcoal, darker than the earth they were splayed over.

End sighed, walking around in front of the desperate Titania and stomping down on her halberd. His flames engulfed the polearm, melting the mythic armament to slag.

When the weapon burned, something faded in Erza's eyes, her head falling into the caked mud.

"You were right. I was lying," End confessed. "Salamander is alive. I'm sorry. I was angry. I know that's no excuse—"

"Where?" Erza demanded, her voice dull and blunted, but determined. "Where is he?"

End sighed, but he knew he owed her at least this much. He curled his arm around and pointed to his own forehead.

"He's in here. Exactly where I was for all those years. Salem didn't have enough confidence in her enchantment abilities to attempt to move him anywhere," he revealed. "He can see everything. Hear everything, smell everything, feel everything. But that's all. He can only watch and suffer."

In deference to her current state, he left out his personal hopes that the Dragon Slayer was screaming. Just as he did for so many years.

"He's alive," Erza whispered, relief flooding her face. "We can bring him back."

End frowned. "I'd be more concerned with your own body, Titania. After all, Ascension is the only way you'll be able to recover from this."

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Summer breathed a sigh of relief as Weiss's giant scythe passed harmlessly over Ruby. The maiden power wouldn't have been able to adjust so quickly from their initial dodge to get them out of the way again, but she wasn't sure her curse would have been fast enough either. She could have used it to manipulate Ruby's body into pushing herself out of the way, but that would have put her daughter in its path.

It wasn't even a choice.

The offending spectral weapon faded a few feet after it finished its work. Summer spied Weiss trembling where she laid, her aura broken and used up, clutching her spasming hand in horror.

That poor girl. That poor, poor girl.

"Mom!"

"Teacher!"

Summer heard Yang and Cinder's distressed voices as she collapsed against the floor. She glanced down at her missing lower half, her stomach slashed in two. Idly, even as her strength evaporated near-instantly, sucked away by some mystic element from the scythe's wound, she found herself noting that it hurt as much as the last time she died. How funny, in a sad sort of way.

She supposed that could be said about her entire life. A failure of a huntress. A failure of a monster. No good to anyone, not even herself. Remnant's biggest sucker.

She blinked, one of the last times she ever would, and suddenly Yang and Cinder were kneeling on either side of her, tears flooding down their cheeks.

"Transform, Teacher!" Cinder frantically demanded. "Transform and heal! Please! Mom!"

Mom? Oh, her sweet little princess, how she wished she could, if only to spare you and your sisters more pain. Alas, the Eclipse Etherious Form required a spark of both curse and magic to enter, and she found that the scythe had deprived her of both. For a few moments, she could do nothing but watch her two oldest cry for the one who had failed them so miserably, failed to give them a world any different from the hell of Seram's wrath.

But then her youngest appeared over the center of her head, free from the curse that bound her. As much as Macro's failing was a sure sign of her approaching fate, Summer was far more distressed by the confused tears falling from Ruby's bloodied face.

No, no. She shouldn't cry. She'd done her duty. The huntress had slain the monster.

Mustering what sparks were left in her muscles, she tried to raise her arm to wipe away those silver tears… but she only got halfway before her limb fell dead, darkness overtaking her as it had so many years ago.

She did not think she would wake this time.

"My beautiful girls…" Summer murmured, desperate to give some comfort with her last breath. "Mommy loves…"

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"… you more than anything in the whole world."

Ruby only heard those words, the completion of her mother's final words, when the Winter Maiden's light had flown from the Gate's corpse into her head. She gasped as the new flood of ethernano attached itself to her soul, filling her depleted origin back to bursting as the massive excess spilled into the atmosphere.

Of course, she could barely acknowledge that when she felt her lungs heaving, unsure if they should sob or cheer, surrounded by one sister who was loved and the other despised, yet both brokenly, blankly staring at the body.

The body. Not mom anymore. Not Summer, not Esper, not COMMAND ESR… just the body.

Part of Ruby angled towards Cinder, survival instinct recognizing that she had just gained the maiden power that the murderer craved so violently. But she needn't have been concerned.

The Gate of the Archer didn't even look at her. She merely shut her eyes before letting out a feral roar, leaping to her feet, and charging straight towards Weiss. With her aura broken, her body exhausted, and her magic severely depleted, the Ice God Slayer could only widen her eyes in horror.

Fortunately, Cinder would never reach her, Pyrrha bursting forth on a trail of golden light and tackling the former Fall Maiden through a wall, tumbling down the side of the tower to the northern courtyard below.

"Pyrrha," Ruby whispered, terror for her friend managing to break through her maelstrom of confounding emotion. "Yang, we have to… Yang?"

Yang didn't hear her. She didn't think Yang had heard or seen anything since Weiss's summon's scythe, his scythe, had torn through mom. Her sister just stared numbly at the body, her fire completely squelched.

Yet, Ruby had never been more terrified of her sibling than in that moment. She had no flames, no arms… but her eyes were blood-red.

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She was dead.

"Mommy, please, I'll be better! Please! Please don't go!"

She was dead. Again.

"I'm not asking you to forgive her… she needs to face justice for what she's done."

She'd been willing to let her go. She knew she needed to let her go… but not yet.

"But I'm begging you, please… let us have our mother back."

She'd begged her. She'd begged her. She'd begged her friend for time.

"Her friends would endure anything for her…"

But they hadn't.

"… so she could endure this for them."

She'd given her arms for them, without complaint or regret. She'd been willing to give up her mother, if she'd just had a bit more time.

"The rest of the world tends to view us as lesser."

Carla had lied to her. Manipulated her.

"That our lives are expendable, our dreams meaningless…"

She'd begged Weiss. She'd begged her.

"We're the pawns to be sacrificed."

SHE'D BEGGED HER!

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She'd… she'd done it. She'd killed her. She'd saved Ruby, she'd gotten justice for her lost loved ones.

Weiss had won. Against all odds, she'd pushed through the wall in front of her and won.

And yet, she could only stare at her own hand in horror. The power that had surged through her when she'd cracked open the gate just a tad more… she'd been trying to summon her Arma Gigas's sword. The spear had come out so much larger than she'd even tried for her intended weapon, nearly killed Ruby, shifted shape without any input from her. She could feel that Ozpin was right, that she could never hope to make a portal big enough for his entire being, but even just the fraction of his weapon that had come through…

The Umbral Spirit King was terrifying.

As was Cinder, when she came barreling towards her with murder in her eyes. If Pyrrha hadn't intervened…

That didn't matter. Pyrrha was strong, but she couldn't take Cinder alone. But Weiss and Ruby were completely exhausted. The only one who could back her up was…

"Yang!" Weiss called. "We need to help Pyrrha. We need to—"

"Weiss," Ruby interrupted, her silver eyes shivering with fear. "Run."

Run? Why would she run…

Why was it suddenly so warm?

"I begged you."

Suddenly, pink fire began to trail and flicker from Yang's hair, the hall's darkness seemingly drawn deep into the Devil Slayer, black tattoos forming over her face as her right stump of putrid flesh pulsed with power. Bit by bit, the flames churned and surged, eventually shrouding the Golden Fairy in a raging violet inferno as she rose to her feet.

Weiss's throat ran dry as parchment paper, paralyzed with dread as the blazing pillar slowly turned towards her.

Yang's right arm, now a full-grown claw of black, demonic muscle, tore through the conflagration, unleashing the huntress's piercing, murderous crimson eyes.

"I'll… kill… YOU!"

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Ah, so many moments that I've had planned for so long. I promised shit hitting the fan and I believe I delivered.

Thank you for Reading! I hope you enjoy what comes next!

Go Forth and Conquer!